Aaron's Rod eBook

The party was seated in the drawing-room, that the
grown-up daughters had made very fine during their
periods of courtship. Its walls were hung with
fine grey canvas, it had a large, silvery grey, silky
carpet, and the furniture was covered with dark green
silky material. Into this reticence pieces of
futurism, Omega cushions and Van-Gogh-like pictures
exploded their colours. Such chic would
certainly not have been looked for up Shottle Lane.

The old man sat in his high grey arm-chair very near
an enormous coal fire. In this house there was
no coal-rationing. The finest coal was arranged
to obtain a gigantic glow such as a coal-owner may
well enjoy, a great, intense mass of pure red fire.
At this fire Alfred Bricknell toasted his tan, lambs-wool-lined
slippers.

He was a large man, wearing a loose grey suit, and
sprawling in the large grey arm-chair. The soft
lamp-light fell on his clean, bald, Michael-Angelo
head, across which a few pure hairs glittered.
His chin was sunk on his breast, so that his sparse
but strong-haired white beard, in which every strand
stood distinct, like spun glass lithe and elastic,
curved now upwards and inwards, in a curious curve
returning upon him. He seemed to be sunk in stern,
prophet-like meditation. As a matter of fact,
he was asleep after a heavy meal.

Across, seated on a pouffe on the other side of the
fire, was a cameo-like girl with neat black hair
done tight and bright in the French mode. She
had strangely-drawn eyebrows, and her colour was brilliant.
She was hot, leaning back behind the shaft of old marble
of the mantel-piece, to escape the fire. She
wore a simple dress of apple-green satin, with full
sleeves and ample skirt and a tiny bodice of green
cloth. This was Josephine Ford, the girl Jim
was engaged to.

Jim Bricknell himself was a tall big fellow of thirty-eight.
He sat in a chair in front of the fire, some distance
back, and stretched his long legs far in front of
him. His chin too was sunk on his breast, his
young forehead was bald, and raised in odd wrinkles,
he had a silent half-grin on his face, a little tipsy,
a little satyr-like. His small moustache was
reddish.

Behind him a round table was covered with cigarettes,
sweets, and bottles. It was evident Jim Bricknell
drank beer for choice. He wanted to get fat—­that
was his idea. But he couldn’t bring it
off: he was thin, though not too thin, except
to his own thinking.

His sister Julia was bunched up in a low chair between
him and his father. She too was a tall stag
of a thing, but she sat bunched up like a witch.
She wore a wine-purple dress, her arms seemed to poke
out of the sleeves, and she had dragged her brown hair
into straight, untidy strands. Yet she had real
beauty. She was talking to the young man who
was not her husband: a fair, pale, fattish young
fellow in pince-nez and dark clothes. This was
Cyril Scott, a friend.